IJERS/ BIMONTHLY/ MEENAKSHI BHARGAVA (65-70)

STUDY OF EDUCATIONAL CHOICES OF XI CLASS STUDENTS AS A

DETERMINANT OF THEIR VOCATIONAL ENVIRONMENT.

Meenakshi Bhargava
Research Scholar,B.U. Bhopal

Abstract
Development of a human being depends upon surroundings in which he is nurtured.
Environment forms base of personality and plays a major role in framing perceptions and
actions of a person. Education also depends on the environment and its interpretation by the
individual. Vocational Environment is a combination of many factors and aspects, which
influences an individuals academic performances. An individual always learns from his/her past
experience, which he has seen around, his surroundings, and consequently he forms a concept
about things and matter. Thinking and conceptualization is affected by environment of the
individual so the present study attempts to know the vocational environment of students of
different streams and its relation with educational choices. For collection of data standardized
tool (VES) is used and mean, S.D. and t-scores are calculated to analyze the data.
Introduction
Education is one of the major means available to a civilized society for improving and
developing its members. Education and teacher is responsible for shaping mind and environment
of an individual. The environment being a suitable one creates a perfect personality and a fruitful
member of society. One way of becoming a productive member of the society for an individual
is through self realization. The major avenue for self realization is through ones work, which
can be fulfilled by selecting a suitable occupation. So selection of a right job is a significant
process for every individual. The choice of an individual depends on numerous variableseducational, social and personnel. These variables play on vital role in the making of educational
choices. Vocational choice is now considered to be one aspect of vocational development. It is
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more a process than an event. Vocational development of a child depends on many factors. Two
categories of factors can be thought of factual and perceptual. Factual factors mostly refer to the
physical reality, as it exists, whereas perceptional factors relate to the favorable or unfavorable
perception of the same environment by an individual.
There are various factors, which are responsible for vocational development and making of
vocational environment. The environmental factors are provided by the external reality
conditions. These environmental variables are the products of many specific sub-environment
that are likely to be related to the growth of the individual person in many aspects such as
educational, social, emotional, intellectual and vocational. Hence to study and reveal the base of
educational and occupational choices of students and a deep analysis of their vocational
environment is necessary.
Need of the Study
An individuals personality and his mental set up reflects his life style and background. All the
decisional choices an individual makes are the consequences of his basic environment. To know
the all aspects a persons developmental processes we must learn about the influence of various
types of environment on the growth and development. In order to know how and why an
individual forms his assumptions and makes the educational professional choice we have to
study the environmental factors influencing him.
To make all realize the importance of environment and its influxes we have study the vocational
environment and explore the formation of thoughts and conditions, which influence educational
choices. This study will be useful in suggesting possible techniques for improving school
motivation and developing realistic occupational aspirations.
There must be some link between educational choices and occupational planning so that an
individual can reach his/her destination in an appropriate manner .It is environment which forms
the basis of education and frames the perception about the choices.
Operational Definitions
Educational Choices: Traditionally Choice is a decision, which the individual makes at a
given moment in time. It is a basic assumption of all but one of the theories of vocational choice
that individual systematically chooses the curriculum or occupation he intends to enter.
Educational choices are operationally defined as the elective subject groups which the boys and
girls have taken up in their eleventh class of higher secondary schools.
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Vocational Environment: Vocational Environment is a complex structure said to be composed

of all specific environmental factors responsible for ones vocational development and decisions
for the purpose of this study all the aspects of environment related to the vocational development
of the individual may be called vocational environment.
Review of Related Literature
Grewal J.S.(1980) conducted a research considering the relationship of the vocational
environment to educational choice and vocational preference of eleventh class students .Impact
of environment intelligence and social interaction on mental state of students were studied and
analyzed as factors of vocational development.
Mehta(1960) conducted a study on employment pattern survey of the Alumni of Delhi
University. The main findings were that about 30 percent entered a career without developing
any aim.
Objectives
To study the relationship between the nature of Educational choices and the index of vocational
environment.
To study the difference in perception of vocational environment in boys and girls.
To study the difference in perception of vocational environment in science and arts students.
To study the difference in respect of the perception of vocational environment due to the
occupational areas of choices.
Hypothesis
There is no significant difference between the indexes of vocational environment of students of
different educational choice areas.
There is no significant difference in perception of vocational environment of boys and girls of
different educational choice areas.
There is no significant difference between perception of vocational environment of science and
arts students.
There is no significant difference between perceptions of vocational environment due to
preferred educational choice areas.
Methodology
Sample: Students of eleventh class from 4 CBSE schools were taken as the sample of the study.

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Variable: Vocational Environment is considered as independent variable and Educational choice

is dependent variable.
Tools: Vocational Environment Scale
Data analysis: The data was analyzed through mean, S.D.and t-scores.
Table : 1. Composite Index of Vocational Environment
Category of
Subjects
Science Boys
Science Girls
Arts Boys
Arts Girls

fd

fx

25
25
25
25

1915
1845
1814
1845

4396.84
3492.28
5079.1
6876.8

S.D.

76.6
73.8
73.64
73.8

13.26
11.8
14.25
16.03

Table : 2. Table for Comparison with t-scores. Difference in Perceptions of the

Vocational Environment
Category of
Subjects
Science Boys

Arts Boys

Science Girls

Arts Girls

Science Boys

Science Girls

Arts Boys

Arts Girls

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Mean
N

(IVE)

S.D.

T-value

in %
25

76.6

13.6

25

73.64

14.25

25

73.8

11.8

25

73.8

16.6

25

76.6

13.6

25

73.8

11.8

25

73.64

14.25

25

73.8

16.6

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0.75

4.07

3.59

4.37

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Analysis and Findings

Objective 1 To study the relationship between the nature of Educational choices and the index of
vocational environment. The fact that the students studying science differ significantly arts in the
perception of vocational environment is not supported in the study as there is slight difference in
composite index of Vocational Environment of students. So we can infer that there is a not
significant relationship between educational choices and vocational environment.
Objective 2 To study the difference in perception of vocational environment in boys and girls. It
is clear from the comparison table that perception of boys differs very much from the perception
of girls. Hence there is significant difference in vocational environment of boys and girls.
Objective 3 To study the difference in perception of vocational environment in science and arts
students. The choices and vocational environment of science students and arts students differ
very much and this thought is supported by the results of the comparison as shown in the table.
Objective 4 To study the difference in respect of the perception of vocational environment due to
the occupational areas of choices. The concept of vocational environment is framed on the basis
of areas selected by the student. The results in the table number one show that there is difference
in the perception due to influence of their educational choice areas.
Conclusion
The present study indicates strong relationship between the two variables. The vocational
environment and educational choices are interrelated to each other and influence each other
naturally. As it is clear from the analysis of table that students from different streams differ in
composite vocational environment index, which shows that educational choices influence and
depicts perception of vocational environment. Educational environment hence influences
intellectual and academic efficiency of an individual. Students need proper guidance and
direction to utilize their potential in the suitable area.
References
Arbuckle, Dugald S ( 1960) Integrating Occupational materials into curricula reprocess.
Personnel and Guidance Journal,Vol.39,pp 120-123
Beard, Richard (1967) Counseling the culturally different student. Dallas conventional abstracts.
Beilin, H.(1963) The application of general occupational principles to the vocational area.
Journal of Counseling Psychology, pp.53-57.

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Carlin, Jerry S. (1968) The environment of the child and its relationship to his achievement in
science: A theoretical review. Science Education, p. 23
Cass, John C et.all (1960) Vocational development and the selection of a high school
curriculum.Personnel and Guidance Journal, Vol 38 pp 538-545

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